


Lapsed Vigilance

by Rosage



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Burns, M/M, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 09:58:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8663023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosage/pseuds/Rosage
Summary: Saizo can’t concern his lord with on-the-job complications. From dusk to dawn Ryoma is no longer his lord, but adjusting is difficult.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to merewiowing for previewing this.

Even before kneeling beside Ryoma, Saizo can tell he’s awake. He’s lying on his back, shoulders squared over his pillow of hair, a position in which he can at best achieve restful meditation. A candle flickers nearby, a further sign Ryoma hadn’t intended to sleep. It’s meant to welcome Saizo home, he assumes. Tonight it makes his lips press together.

Ryoma reaches out from underneath the blankets, his bare wrist shivering from the night air. Without thinking, Saizo catches it and wraps both hands around Ryoma’s larger one. It’s cold, dreadfully cold, though it’s probably Saizo’s lingering fire magic that makes him think so. Otherwise the damage done to Saizo’s skin over time prevents him from feeling Ryoma’s properly. He knows, from times when Ryoma’s fingers and palms touched the sheltered skin of his face, that they’re as calloused as any warrior’s; yet Saizo is not just a warrior, and fire has turned his hands into their own cracked leather gloves.

New blisters stud the red skin. Ryoma brings his other hand to rub Saizo’s knuckles. “How did it go?”

Saizo closes his eye. “Horribly. The whole point of torture by fire is to keep the captive’s blood inside them until they talk, but—" His eye flies open before he can relay the enemy spy’s untimely death. He can’t tell, but he’s sure his palms are no longer dry. “For… Forgive me, my lord. That’s no way to deliver a report.”

To his bewilderment, Ryoma smiles. “I wasn’t asking as your lord.”

Maybe it’s supposed to be reassuring that Saizo responded as expected, but it makes even him want to shiver. He can’t remember ever complaining about his job before, even when Ryoma tried to coax him into it. The gentle squeezing of Ryoma’s hands feels like a trap.

“Either way, there’s no need for you to be troubled over such details,” Saizo says. “And the first thing I must do upon returning is report to my lord.”

“Can that not wait until morning?” Ryoma’s fluttering lids betray that he’d prefer to pull Saizo down and not think until daylight. Only recently has Saizo appreciated that his viligant liege is crafted through hours of morning meditation. He can’t chide Ryoma when his heart is still ramming against his chest at his own errors.

“I suppose it can. The mission was a failure. I have no real information to deliver.”

After the word _failure_ , Saizo’s voice sounds like a hollow echo. He tries to find the perfect words for his apology, for his offer of atonement—he’ll accept any punishment, his subordinates are capturing a replacement, and the one who was supposed to check the spy for poison has been thoroughly…

“So rest for tonight.” Ryoma says it like it’s the simplest thing in the world. Lord Ryoma, who would pull countless all-nighters reviewing policy if Kagero hadn’t lectured him enough on the importance of a leader’s health.

But Ryoma isn’t his lord until morning. He’s said as much. Saizo is learning these things, bit by bit.

Ryoma massages his hands, kneading with strong fingers as if to accentuate the point. They finally penetrate the numbness, and Saizo grunts at the pain of fresh burns. He regrets it when Ryoma freezes.

“I forgot you mentioned fire,” Ryoma says. “You were extracting information, so I didn’t think… Are you all right?”

The concern in Ryoma’s voice makes him sicker than the torture had. As the king’s retainer, it’s disgraceful that such basic methods churned his stomach. As Ryoma’s lover, it’s disgraceful that there was a time when they didn’t—when they gave him sick satisfaction, even, until Kotaru’s death allowed that festering wound to scab over.

“It’s nothing.”

No stranger to warrior pride, Ryoma squints at him in the candlelight. “You have salve, don’t you? I’ll apply it for you,” Ryoma says, and starts to sit up. Saizo disentangles their hands to press down on Ryoma’s shoulder, as firmly as he can bring himself (as gently as he can manage).

“You need rest,” Saizo says, biting back the _milord_ that should follow. “I will take care of it.”

The boldness is worth it when Ryoma acquiesces. Maybe it’s his samurai training, but he’s surprisingly willing to bend, when Saizo is willing to apply pressure. “After that, join me.”

Lord or not, it’s an order Saizo will readily follow.

Ryoma props himself back up to watch while Saizo submerges his hands in cold water. He should have washed himself thoroughly before entering Ryoma’s chambers, but he hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t thought about anything except returning to his side. He wrinkles his nose at the salve’s stench and notes its ineffectiveness at doing anything besides making the burns sting. Perhaps they’re worse than he thought. Perhaps he’s damaged enough that he can no longer tell.

As promised, he returns and slides under the covers Ryoma lifts. In the past they found all sorts of excuses—Ryoma keeping his bodyguard close in the vulnerable state of sleep, Saizo’s body heat providing better warmth during winter than a dozen blankets. Now all that matters is that Ryoma has requested his presence.

Ryoma’s finally on his side, suggesting he’s ready to sleep, but he takes Saizo’s hands again and brushes his lips against the knuckles.

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Saizo says. “Midori made the salve.” The sound Ryoma makes suggests he figured that out. He seeks other places his mouth can reach, given that Saizo is still wearing his clothes, knives close underneath. Burns dull the sensation in his wrist as much as his hands, and Ryoma’s attempts to get underneath fabric yield dubious results until he pries off Saizo’s mask. By the time his lips reach Saizo’s, skin finally sensitive enough to feel moisture and chapped edges and _warmth_ , they taste of blood.

Saizo can’t remember being injured, still can’t tell where the cut is. All he knows is that he likes the taste better than when Ryoma has been eating sweets.

He licks Ryoma’s mouth clean, though he can’t help but feel that it’s like wiping up a spill with a dirty rag.


End file.
